Building capacity for transformative action in energy transitions

The CAPTAIN project addresses the challenges posed by radical and controversial strategies and policies required in the next phase of the energy transition. To ensure the viability of such policies, public authorities must actively foster broad engagement and public acceptance. The primary goal of the CAPTAIN project is to equip public authorities to navigate these challenges by learning from past setbacks and creating innovative platforms for managing transitions. CAPTAIN focuses on enhancing the governance capacities of Norwegian authorities. This will be achieved through the development of frameworks for transformative governance that adeptly handle conflicts and controversies while promoting comprehensive and equitable decision-making processes. This approach draws on the principles of transformative governance and action-oriented methodologies for effectively managing large-scale transitions The project focuses on the transportation sector, known for its high energy consumption. Advancing energy transitions within this sector hinges on adopting demand-side policies that aim to reduce transportation demand, subsequently lowering energy usage. These policies are becoming increasingly crucial as the urgency to prioritize scarce energy resources intensifies. However, demand-side policies often generate controversy due to their potential to disrupt established practices and businesses. Consequently, decision-makers must be well-prepared to introduce and navigate these types of transportation policies. To address these challenges, CAPTAIN engages with local, regional, and national authorities to establish collaborative platforms for social innovation. These platforms serve as arenas for co-creating policies that strategically reduce energy demand within the sector. Drawing inspiration from the concept of Transition Management, these platforms formulate agendas that outline approaches for realizing future mobility systems characterized by low energy demand.

Radical and controversial pathways and policies that are needed for the next phase of the energy transition might face opposition that blocks political action. In the next phase of the energy transition, there will be an increased need for decision makers to navigate policies that are controversial and to implement more radical solutions that are likely met with resistance. To maintain the legitimacy of such policies, public authorities need to more deliberately foster inclusive engagement and public acceptance for radical and controversial policies such as energy demand reduction. This project sets out to prepare public authorities for such endeavours by learning from failure and by creating new transition arenas. CAPTAIN will increase the governance capacity of Norwegian authorities by developing frameworks for transformative governance that internalises conflicts and controversy, and that enable more inclusive and just decision-making . We do so with reference to understandings of transformative governance and action-oriented methods for transition management. We turn to one of the most energy-intensive sectors in Norway, transport. Critical to progress energy transitions in transport is turning to demand-side policies that reduce transport demand and in effect energy demand. Such policies become increasingly important as the need to prioritise increasingly scare energy resources increases. However, demand side policies are often attached to controversy, also in transport , because they interfere with the practices of citizens and the value chains of businesses. Decision-makers thus need prepare for introducing these types of transport policies. CAPTAIN therefore engages local, regional and national authorities to establish social innovation arenas for co-creating policies that reduce energy demand in transport. Drawing on Transitoin Managent, these arenas will deliver agendas describing approaches tor realising future mobility systems with low energy demand.